


Laundry Day

by rhiannonhero



Category: As the World Turns
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-03
Updated: 2011-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-15 09:03:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/159234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhiannonhero/pseuds/rhiannonhero





	Laundry Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [_alicesprings](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=_alicesprings).



Lily hauls the last laundry basket up the stairs to Luke’s bedroom. She usually has the kids sort the clothes out and put them away, and Luke often does his laundry himself, but Natalie and Ethan are at the farm with Holden this weekend, Faith’s somewhere with Parker, and Luke...well, Luke’s with Reid. At least, she assumes that he is. He doesn’t really tell her as much about what is going on in his life lately, but she knows that he’s been working very hard at the Foundation, the shipping company, and with the hospital board on Reid’s wing. In fact, three weeks ago, they worked on it together so late that Luke called to let her know he was crashing at Reid’s place. Well, that had been his excuse for staying anyway. She's sure that it was actually more than that.

Lily sighs, opening the door to Luke’s room. The bed is made, and everything is put in its place. Luke’s never been a neat-freak, but he does keep things in order, especially if he’s going to be away. She remembers when he was a child, during one of her separations from Holden, he would always tidy up his room before leaving for the farm to spend a weekend with his dad. She remembers his blond head bent over the toy box, putting things neatly inside, and how he’d turned and smiled at her with that blinding sweetness of his, and he’d said, “This way it’ll feel good to come home. And I can get it all back out again.”

The room is another clue that when he’d called last night to say that he wasn’t coming home again, it certainly wasn’t because of his excuse that he and Reid had impulsively decided to go to a late movie, and he didn’t want to disturb her getting home after midnight. No, he’d planned to spend the night there. She wonders why he feels like he has to sugar-coat it for her, or make up reasons to stay with Reid. She’s aware that he’s a grown man, even if he feels like her little boy. It might be hard for her to accept it, but she’s clued into the fact that his relationship is...adult in nature. The way he and Reid look at each other when they think no one’s looking is evidence of that. Surely he’s aware that she’s not stupid. Luke must know that _she_ knows that he’s having sex with Reid.

She closes her eyes and shakes her head. Oh, well. Laundry. It’s the last load, and if she gets it put away for the kids, then when they all come back from wherever they’ve wandered, everything will be exactly where it should be. There’s security in that, right? Home? She just wants them to always know that this is always their home.

Luke’s closet is pretty big. She remembers when Luke had his birthday sleep-over party when he was seven, and all eleven kids managed to fit onto his closet floor with their sleeping bags. They’d been “camping out” in his closet. Pretending it was a tent. It had been darling. Lily sits the basket down, and remembers how the closet had been half empty back then, and how his little pants and shirts had hung so high off the ground. Now it’s mostly full. Toward the front are Luke’s shelves for his sweaters and jersey shirts. Then a rack for his various casual shoes. Next to that he keeps his old t-shirts for sleeping folded up on a shelf above his boxer shorts. She sighs again, looking at the mix of older, soft boxers and the new boxer-briefs that he’s purchased recently. Probably because of Reid -- probably _for_ Reid.

Lily puts a hand to her chest remembering when he’d gone from little boy briefs to boxers, and how she’d thought he was such a big boy then, a man, but this...this is different. The boxer-briefs are about sex, and she knows it. It’s comfort and support, sure, but there’s the fact that he bought them only after he and Noah broke up, right around the time that he and Reid started getting close. And, yes, Lily noticed at the time. She does the laundry sometimes. She notices these things. And so when that call had come, the first of many excuses over the last three weeks, she knew exactly what was going on, and that he was probably wearing boxer-briefs in readiness for it.

Lily doesn’t like to think about her children having a sex life. No mother does. But there’s no way around it. As Luke grew up, and came out, she had to accept that he’s gay, and that acceptance meant that she had to acknowledge that he was a sexual person, that there were _things_ he wanted and needed to do with people -- with men -- that would give him physical pleasure, the primal pleasure that everyone seeks and responds to; she remembers when she first felt the urgent need to experience it for herself. Falling in love, marriage, all of that is important, but it all revolves around sex to some extent, and so, yes, Lily knows that Luke has a sexual drive, and urges that he feels compelled to act on. Everyone does.

She starts to put away his socks in the chest behind the closet door, closing it nearly entirely to get the drawers open. She sorts the black ones into the top and the white ones into the bottom, and then turns to begin hanging up Luke’s button up shirts so they won’t wrinkle.

If she’s honest, though, the situation with Reid unnerves her. She doesn’t understand what happened between Luke and Noah, and she misses the boy that she has come to think of as family. Reid -- well, he’s not rude to her anymore; not on purpose anyway, and he seems to want her approval, or at least he seems to hope he doesn’t rub her the wrong way most of the time. When he comes to the house, he’s quiet, and sometimes she can see him fighting the urge to interject into her conversation with Luke, some comment that she’s sure would be appalling, but he seems to hold it back rather admirably lately, instead of letting it fly. In a way, it unnerves her more. It’s as though he doesn’t feel safe enough to be himself, like he doesn’t trust that she’s going to accept him.

Lily puts some of Luke’s sweaters on the shelf. Who’s she kidding? She hasn’t decided yet if she accepts him; all that she’s committed to is Luke’s happiness, and so she’s waiting. Waiting to see if the cold, rude man she first met can provide that or if he’ll fail. So, Lily supposes that Reid has every reason not to be himself with her. She is judging him every time they interact.

“...shouldn’t let him get to you like that.”

That’s Reid’s voice. Lily turns toward the door of the closet, ready to open it entirely when she hears Luke say, “Yeah, well, I can’t help it, okay? I loved him. And I still love him. Sorry that I’m lacking in that particular defense mechanism that keeps you detached from such messy emotions.”

They’re fighting. Lily pauses. She needs to open the door now and let them know that she’s here, or this is going to be very awkward.

“Messy emoti -- what does that have to do with this?” Reid asks.

“Evidently? Nothing. Nothing at all, Reid.”

She hears Reid sigh and something that sounds like a hand patting nervously against fabric.

“Look, I’ve told you how I feel about you. What more do you want from me? And I thought this was about Noah and that obnoxious phone message, not about me and whether or not I love the right way, or whatever it is that you’re upset with me about now.”

Luke’s moving stuff around his room with some force, there’s a clatter and a bang, and then the sound of a drawer opening, and then the sound of something rattling. “Dang it,” Luke says. “Of course it’s probably in the one drawer I haven’t been able to get to open in a year.”

“Here, here, I’ll do it, you’re going to break it.”

Lily holds very still. She knows that she’s missed her window of opportunity, and it would be so much more awkward to make her presence known now. She’ll look as though she’s eavesdropping. Never mind that she is.

“There. It’s open.”

“Thanks,” Luke mumbles. She can’t see him but she can imagine his face from his tone alone: annoyed and not at all grateful. “And here it is. Just where he left it. ‘Oh, no, you keep it, Luke. I gave it to _you_.’ Now he wants it back, so suddenly it’s ‘his’ and he ‘left it there by accident’. Jerk.”

“Finally.”

“What?”

“Focusing your anger were it belongs.”

“And where does it belong, Reid?”

“On Noah, of course.”

Lily frowns. She’s not sure she likes Reid telling Luke how he should be feeling about Noah or about anything else.

“What?” Reid asks.

She hears Luke’s exasperated noise in response.

“It’s about time you got angry with him, you know,” Reid says.

“Oh, yeah? And why’s that?”

“Well, gee, where to begin? I know, how about with the fact that he blamed you, no, he _punished_ you for his blindness, even though you had nothing to do with the accident that made him that way -- “

“I wouldn’t say _nothing_ \--” Luke began.

“I would. Were you the one who was allowing your professor to act inappropriately towards you simply so that you could get a better grade on your senior proj --”

“Reid, you know that’s not true. Noah just...he just....”

“He just what? He just wanted an A, Luke, and he knew if his professor thought he might have a shot at getting into his pants, then he just might get one.”

Luke’s voice is sharp. “You don’t know, Reid. You weren’t there.”

“I wasn’t there. But I know you, and I know you would never have sabotaged your boyfriend’s senior project out of jealousy. And the fight that you had before the fireworks went off in his face? Well, sure, Luke, maybe he was distracted a little by that, but the fact that he climbed up that damn ladder and messed with the wires even though he was too upset to see straight? That’s all on him. You can’t blame yourself for that.”

Luke makes a sound like he wants to dispute Reid but can’t.

Lily presses her hand to her chest, aching for her son. She never knew. He never told her, and now? She’s horrified that she ever let him think that he could have played a role in what happened to Noah. She knows him better than that, but that’s what he’d said, and accidents happen, people make bad judgement calls, and the individuals they love get hurt. But, of course Luke might exaggerate his role. He’s always taken the blame for things that had nothing to do with him. She can’t believe she never even thought to ask.

“I’m pretty sure I can,” Luke says, and he sounds so resigned.

“I won’t let you. You’re better than that.”

Luke’s soft, self-deprecating laugh makes Lily’s breath catch, and she feels her eyes getting wet.

“You really think so?”

“No, I’m totally lying,” Reid groans. “Of course, you idiot. I’m in love you. I don’t fall in love with people who don’t deserve it, okay?”

“People?” Luke nudges.

“You know you’re the only one. Stop fishing.”

“The only one _ever_ ,” Luke says, playfully, with so much pride in his voice that Lily has to press her hand to her mouth to keep from making a noise of her own.

“Love that, don’t you?” Reid says, and his tone is all annoyance, but Lily’s seeing through that now.

“I do. I tamed the big, bad Dr. Oliver with my charm and good looks.”

“Pretty sure it was your sexy, hot --”

Then there are kissing noises, and Lily fights the urge to clear her throat, and turns her back to the door. Reid loves her son. He _loves_ her son. She heard him say so himself, and suddenly things seem to fall into place. They aren’t just sexually attracted to each other, it’s gone beyond the urge of physical lust, and it’s something a lot more than that.

“I love you, too,” she hears Luke say, breathlessly.

“So. We good?”

Luke’s chuckle is sweet, and she feels her heart clutch when he answers, “Oh, we’re more than good, Dr. Oliver.”

Lily’s hand covers her mouth again when she hears a high pitched noise from Reid.

“We’re in your mother’s house,” Reid says, and he sounds kind of nervous, which would be funny except that Lily’s suddenly aware that she might be getting front row tickets to the kind of show that she will never want to see -- or hear, in this case.

“She’s not home,” Luke says, and Lily’s never heard her little boy’s voice like that. It’s downright sultry, and she mouths, silently, “Please no, please no, please, please, please, no, no, no!”

“The kids -- “ Reid says.

“Not here.”

“I don’t know, Luke.”

“Come on, Reid. We haven’t done it here. In my bedroom. Where I’ve been in my bed at night and thought of you. And touched myself.”

Lily plugs her ears, but it works about as well as she remembers from childhood. She can still basically hear everything being said, or bits and pieces of it.

“...you and Noah...and I don’t...you two together...turn-off.”

She takes her fingers out of her ears, and hopes that this will be it.

Luke says, “We almost never had sex in here. Hell, we almost never had _sex_ , Reid. You promised me things would be different. No hang-ups, remember? Hot sex without shame. Something like that, Dr. Oliver.”

“Luke,” Reid says softly.

“It’s so good with you, Reid. Better than I ever imagined. I know you love to hear me tell you how hot you are, and how much I love it, and how good it feels when you...”

Luke whispers something she doesn’t catch and she thanks all that is holy for that.

Reid groans, and it’s silky, dark, and absolutely a prelude to something she does _not_ want to know anything about. She girds herself for the humiliation, flings the door open, and steps out with a huge, fake yawn and stretch.

“Mom!” Luke yells, and he’s leaping off the bed where he’s been straddling Reid, who sits up looking startled and kind of grossed out. She absolutely can’t blame him.

“Honey!” she says in feigned surprise. “I fell asleep in your closet putting away the laundry!”

Luke looks at her with disbelieving, kind of wild eyes. “Were you eavesdropping?”

“What? Of course not. I didn’t even know you were here. I was asleep,” she says.

“In my closet?” Luke crosses his arms over his chest, and juts his head forward unconvinced.

“Yes. I was very tired. And now I’m leaving. Good day, Dr. Oliver.”

Reid lifts his hand and lets it fall.

“We’ll never speak of this again,” she calls over her shoulder. Lily ducks out of the room, and pulls herself up against the wall, her heart racing a million miles an hour.

“Oh my God!” Luke says. “Do you think she heard everything?”

“I don’t know. But I’m too old to get caught in the act by my boyfriend’s mommy,” Reid says all high pitched and flustered.

“Maybe she was really sleeping,” Luke says.

“And maybe we’re still gonna have sex,” Reid says sarcastically. “I’m pretty sure it’s equally likely.”

Lily hears Luke open the closet door.

“There’s a basket in here, Reid. Maybe she was --”

“Your mommy puts away your clothes for you? Holy smokes, I’m dating an infant.”

“-- putting the clothes away and then we came in, and...curiosity got the best of her?”

“Well, lesson learned.”

“Yeah, she won’t eavesdrop again,” Luke says. “But, oh my God, I’m so embarrassed.”

“No,” Reid says patiently. “Lesson learned -- we’re never getting naked at your mother’s house. There are spies. Creepy ones. I need a shower. Not here. We’re leaving. Come on, get what you need and let’s go.”

Lily takes off down the hallway, hoping she can hide in her room before Luke and Reid leave. She hopes they can pretend this never happened, because it truly is something she wants to forget. Mostly.

Truth be told, she’s glad to know how it is between them, glad to hear that there’s love, and fights that are resolved with honesty and trust, and she’s...well, she’s glad to know some of the truth about Noah. She doesn’t want to admit that maybe she’s misjudged him, but maybe Luke’s right after all: they were never right for each other. And she’s glad to know that Dr. Oliver loves her son, because she’s known for awhile that Luke was in love with Reid, and it’s a comfort to know that they’re on the same page at the very least.

Lily shuts the door to her room quietly, and leans against it. She thinks about what she heard, and what she learned, and she resolves something absolutely. Luke is going to put away his own laundry from now on.

THE END


End file.
